Four migrants were hauled out of the engine of a coach filled with British shoppers returning from a trip to France, MailOnline can reveal.
The coach, which was filled with elderly passengers heading back to the north west of England, had pulled over at Beaconsfield services when the men were discovered.
Sam McLoughlin, the driver, said he heard knocking and initially thought it was a problem with the engine.
It wasn’t until he opened a tiny compartment on top of the engine that he saw a face staring back at him.
Dramatic video footage taken by Mr McLoughlin shows the police gathering outside the coach and then hauling two of the men out of the compartment and bundling them to the ground.
Mr McLoughlin, 35, who now drives HGVs, said the area where they had hidden could not have been more than 6ft 4ins by 5ft.
‘They had been sardined in and the knocking got louder and more frustrated,’ he told MailOnline.
Dramatic footage shown to MailOnline shows four immigrants being hauled out of the engine of a coach filled with British shoppers returning from a trip to France
The coach, which was filled with elderly passengers heading back to the north west of England, had pulled over at Beaconsfield services when the men were discovered
The police arrived within minutes and gathered outside the coach before hauling the men out of the compartment and bundling them to the ground
The men, thought to be in their 20s and of Eritrean or Sudanese origin, were taken away by police while most of the elderly bus passengers remained oblivious.
The Just Go! Holidays by Coach vehicle was driven from the north east of England to the retail centre Cite Europe in Coquelles, near Calais in April this year.
‘The area is renowned for immigrants trying to head to Britain,’ said Mr McLoughlin.
Sam MCloughlin, the driver, said he heard knocking and initially thought it was a problem with the engine
Passengers, who spent a night in France, left the coach for a final shop before heading back onto the coach to go to the ferry terminal from Calais to Dover.
Mr McLoughlin said passengers are usually asked to disembark on the French side and go through passport control while the driver stays with the vehicle.
Coaches are then searched before being allowed to board the ferry.
Mr McLoughlin was waiting in Dover to take the coach on to Cheshire and Manchester as drivers are only allowed for a set number of hours.
As he drove north he heard a strange noise coming from underneath him.
‘I heard a knocking and I thought first of all it was something to do with the engine.’ he said.
‘I turned the engine off and the noise was still there.
‘I ushered the people on board away and then opened several of the compartments at the bottom of the coach to try and work out what the noise was.’
Mr McLoughlin was waiting in Dover to take the coach on to Cheshire and Manchester as drivers are only allowed for a set number of hours. As he drove north he heard a strange noise coming from underneath him. Pictured: police preparing to detain the men
‘I opened a compartment and there was a face in there,’ Mr McLouhglin said. ‘He was quite aggressive. The temperature must have been about 65C in there as it is right above the engine, literally sat on top of the engine’
The men would have been crammed into the compartment for at least five hours. ‘They were screaming “Is this England?”
When he went into the tiny compartment above the engine, he found the men.
‘I opened a compartment and there was a face in there – he was quite aggressive.
‘The temperature must have been about 65C in there as it is right above the engine, literally sat on top of the engine.
‘There were four of them in there and they would have been there for at least five and a half hours.
Mr McLoughlin said he was under suspicion by the police until he proved that he had not left the UK
‘They were screaming “Is this England?” The first one who came out was shouting “water, water” obviously because of the temperature. They were asking if they were in England.
‘I left them in there and called the police and they were there within two to four minutes.
‘It sounds a bit harsh but I didn’t know what kind of threat they were going to be.’
The police kept Mr McLoughlin talking on the phone while several vans arrived on the scene.
‘You see the scale of the problem in France but you never expect it to happen on your coach, particularly when it had been through Customs. I am not sure how they managed to come through.
‘Only a handful of people saw what happened; I had ushered the rest away.’
Mr McLoughlin said he was under suspicion until he proved that he had not left the UK.
Earlier this week, Sudanese men were spotted clambering onto trucks at the quiet port of Ouistreham in Normandy, 200 miles from Calais
The migrants are a part of a group of about 100 young men from Sudan and Eritrea who live in a makeshift camp in woodland a mile-and-a-half from the port
The coach was owned by a company in the north west which had been sub-contracted to Just Go! to provide the vehicle and has subsequently gone into administration.
Mr McLoughlin said the small family run business was fined for transporting the men across to the UK.
‘It is a shame – the problem is moving further into France and Italy. You see people walking along the hard shoulder with a stick and a bag, walking their way through Europe.’
Mr McLoughlin said he has had to ‘shoo’ four to five groups of people off his coaches and HGV in the past year.
MailOnline has approached Just Go! for comment.